For fans of sports games and racing games, there are a few titles they can expect to see each year. EA and 2K will always give sports game fans and racing game fans something to play. But for 2026, thankfully there's a bit more to look forward to than just your regular annualized titles.
It's an especially good year for racing fans, who have the return of a major franchise to look forward to, and a new high-speed, sci-fi racer that could very well surprise everyone to be one of the best arcade racing games to come around in a while.
If the following games meet their expectations, you might see them again when we do our 'Best of 2026' picks at the end of the year. For now, these are the sports and racing games we're most anticipating in 2026.
Other Wccftech's Most Anticipated 2026 Games per category: Role-Playing Games, Indie Games, Platformers, DLC/Expansion, Action, Shooters, Horror, Fighting, Adventure Games, Strategy/Simulation, Multiplayer, Most Anticipated Games
Forza Horizon 6 (TBC 2026 - PC, Xbox Series X/S)
Forza Horizon 6 may not have been the surprise reveal Xbox wanted it to be at Tokyo Game Show 2025, due to it leaking about a month ahead of the show, but it was still exciting to see nonetheless. Forza Horizon 5 is arguably one of the biggest racing games released in the past decade, and its follow-up looks set to surpass its predecessor in every way.
We still don't know a lot about it, nor do we know when in 2026 it'll aim to be out, but recent reports point to it being an early 2026 release. Hopefully, those reports are correct, and we'll be able to head to Japan in Forza Horizon 6 sooner rather than later.
Mario Tennis Fever (February 12, 2026 - Nintendo Switch 2)
Mario's line of sports games can be hit and miss (pun intended). Sometimes, they're excellently crafted and amazingly replayable, particularly with a few friends huddled around one TV. Super Mario Strikers on Nintendo Wii comes to mind when I think of some Mario sports games that were way more fun than they had any right to be.
Mario Tennis Aces, the last game in the Mario Tennis series, does not fall in the same category as Strikers, but Mario Tennis Fever, the next game in the series due out on February 12, 2026, on Nintendo Switch 2, just might. At least we can hope it will, since Mario is due for a fun arcade-y sports game.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer (TBC 2026 - PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S)
'Now this is pod racing,' is what every Star Wars fan watching The Game Awards 2025 said to themselves when we all collectively realized a new Star Wars racing game was coming our way. At least it would have been, if there were vehicles in the trailer that actually looked like pod racers.
But even a bit of confusion over the lack of the death traps that Little Ani used to win himself out of slavery can't stop the excitement buzzing around the fact that Star Wars: Galactic Racer is a new racing game from Fuse Games, a studio formed by former Need for Speed and Burnout developers. It's frankly the kind of match-made-in-heaven that is equivalent to IO Interactive making a James Bond game.
Hopefully, Star Wars: Galactic Racer is able to make a case for itself this year, and that when we talk about the best racing games of 2026 at the end of the year, Forza Horizon 6 has some company in the conversation.
Exo Rally Championship (TBC 2026 - PC)
Exo Rally Championship was one of our honourable mentions for our most anticipated sports and racing games of 2025, and a year later, not only are we still looking forward to it, but we've moved it up to one of our main five picks for the year. It might not have the brand recognition of the other sci-fi racers on this list, but this off-road arcade racer from developer Exbleative and publisher Future Friends Games is absolutely worth keeping on your radar.
There's no definitive sign as to when it'll arrive, but hopefully last year's Steam Next Fest demo was an indication that the team is making enough progress that it'll be out before the end of 2026.
Golf With Your Friends 2 (TBC 2026 - PC)
Ending our main picks with something fairly different from the rest, Golf With Your Friends 2 is the long-awaited sequel to Golf With Your Friends, a chaotic multiplayer golf game that arrived all the way back in 2016.
In the last decade, Golf With Your Friends has steadily maintained its popularity in such a way that it's sequel could become one of the year's flash-in-the-pan multiplayer games that breaks through and rides the waves of content creators playing it with their friends on livestreams. It might not reach the heights of games like Peak, but it certainly feels like it has that kind of potential.
- Forza Horizon 6 59%, 68 votes68 votes 59%68 votes - 59% of all votes
- Star Wars: Galactic Racer 22%, 26 votes26 votes 22%26 votes - 22% of all votes
- Mario Tennis Fever 9%, 10 votes10 votes 9%10 votes - 9% of all votes
- Golf With Your Friends 2 7%, 8 votes8 votes 7%8 votes - 7% of all votes
- Exo Rally Championship 3%, 4 votes4 votes 3%4 votes - 3% of all votes
Honorable Mentions
We can't include everything in our main picks, but these games still deserve your attention.
- Annual sports games (EA Sports FC 27, NHL 27, MLB The Show 26)
- RIDE 6
- NBA The Run
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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